RESTAURANT owners want to buy a bridge over the River Kennet as part of their car park plans for the new riverside brasserie.

RESTAURANT owners want to buy a bridge over the River Kennet as part of their car park plans for the new riverside brasserie.

Bel and the Dragon wants to own Gas Works Bridge and the section of Gas Works Road leading from the bridge to Blake's Lock Museum, the Victorian pumping station it is converting into an upmarket restaurant.

The company, which is involved in a partnership deal with Reading Borough Council, is negotiating with KingsOak, the property developer which is the current owner of Gas Works Road.

Ian Glyn, Bel and the Dragon director, said: "We are negotiating to acquire Gas Works Road because an important element of the next stage of our proposed development would involve moving car parking into that road.

We hope to build either some starter office space - small offices - or around 10 residential flats on the existing car park at the museum but we cannot apply to do that until we can prove that we can put car parking elsewhere."

The bridge deal would help Bel and the Dragon deliver on a financial package agreed with Reading Borough Council in addition to payment of an undisclosed sum for a 999-year lease on the Grade Two-listed museum building.

Councillors gave the green light in

principle last year to flats or offices on the museum land in exchange for a share of the profits.

Mr Glyn said: "It would enable us to build on what is at the moment the car park because we can replace the car parking and that's what the council and we have agreed would be a good thing to do.

"We would want to make a profit on the scheme and there are fixed amounts that would go to the council."

The company says it has no plans to close the bridge off if it succeeds in buying the road and says adequate car parking could be provided at the roadside.

Any proposals would have to be approved by council highways officers.

Reading Borough Council classes the road as "prospectively maintainable" but it is privately maintained and has not been adopted by the council.

There is a right of way across the bridge for pedestrians, motorised and horse-drawn vehicles and it is expected that utility companies and emergency services would want access.

Mr Glyn said Bel and the Dragon was currently drawing up proposals for the half-acre site next to the museum and would submit a formal planning

application as soon as it agreed a contract to buy the bridge and road.

He added: "We would like to paint the bridge and make it look nice and have the whole lot built

by the end of 2003, which is our new target for

opening the restaurant."

Gas Works Road was formerly owned by Lattice Properties, the property arm of the old British Gas, but was bought by KingsOak along with the land behind the old Huntley & Palmers

biscuit factory in King's Road that it is developing as Blake's Quay, with apartments costing more than £209,000.

Although Bel and the Dragon plans to use the extended Victorian building as a restaurant, the partnership with Reading Borough Council requires it to revamp the old screen house and turbine house on the Blake's Lock site, where a small part of the museum's exhibits on Reading's waterways and historic trades will go on view.

The company paid an estimated £250,000 up front to refurbish the dilapidated buildings as well as agreeing further payments behind closed doors based on the likely restaurant profits and any commercial development of the site.

The former Blake's Lock Museum closed to the public in January, with Bel and the Dragon hoping to open up this summer.

Plans are on hold because Thames Water, which shares the site, is unable to complete engineering works at its key sewage pumping station until December 2003.